What Is Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality And Mixed Reality

The quest of coming up with some brilliant ideas, testing and scrutinizing to have real life adventurous and astonishing experiences has taken a man to the level where he has successfully achieved the emergence of technologies like Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR). However, when it comes to ordinary people, they still get confused and are unable to differentiate between the three of the technologies. Therefore, here we are with a detailed explanation which surely going to help you to gauge the differences among them. Starting off, we will examine it one by one.

What is VR?

Virtual Reality mainly refers to a computer generated surroundings and settings where the user gets a chance to explore and interact with the 3D world. The user actually believes and accepts it as a real environment. Rather than viewing the situation on the screen in front of you, now you can become a part of it via VR technology. Moreover, Virtual Reality enables you to take series of action by manipulating objects.

So, how does Virtual Reality works? Well, all you need is to wear a boxy like goggles named as ‘head-mounted display’ which comprises a screen powered by a computer, a smartphone or it can be a gaming console. With the help of the sensors and specialized software, your vision starts filling up. It is also accompanied by 3D audio, thus making your experience a reality. So, there you go, reaching out and intermingling with the simulated world.

Coming towards the main feature that distinguishes VR from its adjacent technologies, is the promise that it would make the user feel like looking and moving around in real in that artificial world.

What is AR?

Augmented reality allows its users to take a view of the real world and then add in computerized graphics and objects to the scene. Well, reading out the definition doesn’t offer the same level of excitement as it does in case of Virtual Reality where you get to meet a dinosaur or ride a roller coaster, but analysts have believed that the scope of Augmented Reality is much wider than the Virtual Reality.

AR differs from VR in a sense that it does not allow you to get lost in another environment away from your immediate or present surroundings.

While when we talk about the similarity, like VR, AR is also delivered through a sensor packed wearable glasses.

What is MR?

Mixed Reality – as the name suggests, is the combination of its cousin technologies; Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (MR), and it aims to have both worlds interact with each other.

In case of Augmented Reality, it does not offer an interaction between you and the computer generated images, whereas Mixed Reality fixes that by allowing physical interaction with the virtual objects in real time. So, Mixed Reality combines the real world like AR and Virtual Objects like VR and allows treating the virtual objects in real.

Bottom Line:

Wrapping up all the three concepts, it can be said that like VR, Mixed Reality users can directly interact with the computer generated simulation offering real time experience and like AR; Mixed Reality users are allowed to overlay the content in the physical world. As far as MR is being concerned, it can be marked as an enriched ‘Digital-Real Time Collaboration’.